Disaster Recovery

DRaaS (Disaster Recovery as a Service) is a cloud-based service for fast disaster recovery of servers that were previously copied in a backup data center. A cloud provider helps to restore a working system in the event of a partial or complete failure of the main customer’s data center.

The essence of the service is continuous replication of the combat IT infrastructure from the company’s local network to the cloud. A copy of the infrastructure in the backup data center is also in full readiness to take the load at any time. At the same time, the backup occurs in the background and does not slow down the operation of the IT system.
In the event of any failure, the user can launch a virtual copy of the servers in just a few minutes. All virtual machines will remain available in the cloud provider’s data center over the network thanks to an automatically created VPN tunnel.

DRaaS providers’ services range from site recovery to data transfer entirely to data centers. The service most often involves the creation of a disaster recovery plan with personal settings and is provided as a subscription license.

This service requires planning and trust in the supplier. There are also differences in the methods of data / server recovery and the speed with which they can be recovered. Some solutions, in addition to real-time replication of data, also take over processing functions at short notice, providing fast recovery time (RTO). Therefore, the software and OS settings of the hot server are also continually replicated, and virtual machine applications can be activated without delay. That is, DRaaS can automatically provision a new virtual machine, restored, configured, and activated in just a few minutes.

Considerations when choosing a DRaaS solution

  • Multiplatform: Make sure you can protect all production servers, both physical and virtual, hosted in the cloud.
  • Fault tolerance: DRaaS is not just a recoverable archive image in the cloud, but the ability to switch to a backup virtual server in case of need.
  • Continuity and relevance: Real-time replication captures and transfers changes as they occur, eliminating the risk of losing critical data and server settings.
  • Scalability: A DRaaS solution should be scalable as the company grows, whether it’s a small business with multiple servers or a corporation with a data center that expands to thousands of physical and virtual machines.

The solution to the problem of data safety within the framework of the service kills at least two birds with one stone:
First, most of the costs are successfully reduced to nothing:

  • No lease fees for the backup data center;
  • There are no regular expenses for electricity, cooling system and Internet traffic;
  • No need to buy or rent servers, storage systems and network equipment;
  • There is no need to move employees between data centers or pay for the maintenance of your own backup data center.

Secondly, DRaaS solutions are compatible with various systems, flexibly configured and adapted to the IT infrastructure, so you can protect servers with different hypervisors and it does not matter what types of storage systems, applications and operating systems the company uses.

DRaaS is of great interest, but many companies hesitate to use the service, putting additional investments on the other side of the scale, increasing the workload for IT professionals and complicating the existing infrastructure. In addition, providers offer DRaaS as a standalone service or as an addition to an existing data protection strategy, and the full effect is achieved only with the integrated implementation of two tools: BackUp and Disaster Recovery .